Soldiers of misfortune

Citation

(2010), "Soldiers of misfortune", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 19 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2010.07319eab.001

Soldiers of misfortune

Article Type: News items From: Disaster Prevention and Management, Volume 19, Issue 5

An invited comment by Allan Boyce

Americans want things quick – from burgers to disaster relief. When politicians and civilian government agencies are slow to deliver, people look to the military – the most respected public institution for nearly two decades. Yet there are costs to this reliance, including the reluctance to look for alternatives. Here we examine present and past US policies, perceptions, and expectations on the use of the military in disaster relief and humanitarian operations. This article hopes to inform, educate, and set the stage for meaningful future discussions.

On Tuesday evening, January 12, 2010, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. In less than a minute, nearly a quarter million people were dead and a like number injured. Over one million people were homeless. Already one of the world’s poorest and most politically troubled nations, Haiti already was host to the United Nations Stabilization Mission and numerous non-governmental organizations providing support and coordinating aid with the government of Haiti. All of these organizations suffered losses and their ability to function was greatly impaired in the aftermath of the quake.

The underpinning of any disaster relief operation is logistics. The US military is the only organization in the world that has moved the entire contents of a medium-sized city halfway around the world and back again – twice – in the last two decades. With its vast logistical resources, planning experience, and flexible mission structure, it became the de facto “first responder” to the Haiti quake disaster.

Most Americans were probably not surprised by this role. But in fact, it is only in the last decade or so that the military has become the “go to” organization for response to major disasters. The reliance on the US military for humanitarian assistance makes sense, given that it can bring overwhelming capabilities to bear quickly. However, this assumption of military humanitarian assistance has important implications for the military’s strategic national missions, as well as future humanitarian crises.

Many Americans may be surprised to learn that this humanitarian mission is controversial both within the military and outside it. There is fear the humanitarian focus will detract from the military’s primary mission – to prepare for national defense and war. Some aspects of humanitarian assistance may aid in the traditional mission, but others may harm it.

What is the basis for the US military’s lead in providing foreign disaster assistance – as in Haiti – as opposed to leadership by the United Nations and humanitarian NGOs? Why are US military forces becoming increasingly involved in domestic disaster relief operations? What conflicts and concerns exist at the strategic level when decisions are made to prioritize the US military in stability and civil support missions? What can be expected at the operational and tactical levels when US forces deploy? What are the trends for future use of the US military in humanitarian operations? These questions are being debated by policy makers, academicians, and average citizens alike.

The disaster milieu

Whether due to global climate change, shifting demographics, near instantaneous communications capability, or a combination, the beginning of the twenty-first century has ushered in an era of devastating natural disasters: the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004; Pakistan’s 2005 earthquake of 2005; hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Ike and Gustav; the Haitian earthquake; the Szechuan quake; Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar; and so on. The severity of these disasters has also introduced the term “catastrophic disaster,” implying the necessity of global response and cooperation. Disasters are usually seen as localized and of short duration, with victims having to make do for a few days until assistance is firmly in place, enduring months of rebuilding homes and lives, eventually returning to a “new normal” over the course of a year or two. Catastrophes are devastating events with a tremendous loss of life, property, or both. Help may not arrive for days, leaving victims to feel they “are on their own.” There may be a complete loss of civil infrastructure. This can include overwhelmed public safety agencies with little police, fire, or EMS response; no electricity, municipal water, or communications; and the failure of fuel and food supplies. Recovery is very long term, measured in years. The ink is barely dry on the reports of lessons learned from one disaster when the next strikes, with little time for reflection or the implementation of corrections. The civil resources of governments and private organizations have been overwhelmed in the initial stages of many recent disasters. The scope of these disasters is causing governments, NGOs, and commercial interests to reevaluate their roles and their operations. There is a sense of urgency within the emergency management and disaster relief community at all levels. Processes and structures are needed to combine and transform the resources that each individual organization brings to the table. This is still an emerging process. In the interim, military forces are increasingly called upon as first responders, particularly the US military.

A busy decade

The past decade has been a busy one for the US military – fighting a war on two fronts while conducting the largest organizational transformation in 30 years.

Prior to September 11, 2001, the military neatly compartmentalized the missions of national security, domestic support, and foreign humanitarian assistance. Until the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, the preponderance of active duty forces were oriented toward Cold War enemies. Defense of the continental United States was the job of the National Guard and the Strategic Air Command. Overseas humanitarian missions were seen as detracting from war fighting skills. These efforts were generally avoided – though notable exceptions include support to Bangladesh after a devastating typhoon in 1992 (Operation Sea Angel) and assistance rendered to Caribbean and Central American nations after Hurricane Mitch in 1998 (Operation Fuerte Apoyo). The military was happy to have the Department of State and other civilian aid organizations coordinate with the United Nations to conduct international relief. As late as 2000, Department of Defense briefings on supporting foreign disaster relief operations focused on involvement only under specified conditions, only in a supporting role, and always with an eye on the exit conditions. In the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, then-President Bush debated whether the Department of Defense should become the lead federal response agency for all natural disasters. A Washington Times article on September 26, 2005, noted the president favored increasing the Pentagon’s powers in this arena. Bush said, “It is now clear that challenges on this scale requires (sic) greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces – the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment’s notice.” By the end of 2005, the president and the DoD had both issued documents – National Security Presidential Directive 44 (Management of Interagency Efforts Concerning Reconstruction) and DoD Directive 3000.05 (Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction) – establishing stabilization and reconstruction as key elements of US national security. These new policies amended the joint military doctrine that had previously maintained, “The Armed Forces of the United States exist to deter war and protect the security of the United States and its national interests.” Stability operations in other nations, which include foreign humanitarian assistance and civil support, became core DoD missions on an equal priority with combat operations. Most of the military’s emphasis, though, deferred to the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan rather than stability operations. While the US military’s response to overseas natural disasters is primarily an ad hoc arrangement, almost never exercised or conducted the same way twice, the domestic response situation represents an entirely different picture. The Stafford Act, the National Response Framework, the National Incident Management System, and a host of other laws, directives, and regulations now prescribe how and when the US military may react to a natural or man-made disaster on US soil. This is an entirely new development in our nation’s history.

Changing response

Until the early 1900s, disaster response in the USA was primarily a local and state responsibility. State governors used militias to provide disaster assistance.

When the National Guard came into being in 1916, it took over the role. Though use of federal forces was rare, federal military commanders always had the option to respond to prevent the loss of life or property. During the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, General Frederick Funston and a large share of the Army took charge of the relief and recovery mission. Nothing like this occurred again until 1992 and 2005, when the federal government response to hurricanes Andrew and Katrina saw the largest domestic deployments of US troops since the Civil War. The September 11, 2001, attacks caused much soul-searching by national leaders over the nature and meaning of homeland security, homeland defense, and defense support to civilian authorities (DSCA). New organizations were created seemingly overnight. In 2002, The Department of Homeland Security was assembled, placing a polyglot of federal agencies under one roof. Its cabinet-level secretary became the principal federal official responsible for national incident management. That same year, the US military stood up a new geographic combatant command known as the Unites States Northern Command, or NORTHCOM charged with conducting military homeland defense of the continental United States and providing civil support to federal agencies. The less-than-stellar response by civilian officials at all levels to Hurricane Katrina prompted new legislation and many changes, including a new emphasis by the military on civil support.

US Army Lieutenant General William Caldwell, then the commander of the Combined Arms Center, was quoted in the February 8, 2008, New York Times, “Army doctrine now equally weighs tasks dealing with the population – stability or civil support – with those related to offensive and defensive operations.” The Department of Defense released the National Defense Strategy in June 2008 which said in part, “While defending the homeland in depth, DoD must also maintain the capacity to support civil authorities in times of national emergency, such as in the wake of catastrophic natural and man-made disasters. DoD will continue to maintain consequence management capabilities and plan for their use to support government agencies.

Effective execution of such assistance, especially amid simultaneous, multi-jurisdictional disasters, requires ever-closer working relationships with other departments and agencies, and at all levels of the government. To help develop and cultivate these working relationships, DoD will continue to support the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is responsible for coordinating the federal response to disasters. DoD must also reach out to nongovernmental agencies and private sector entities that play a role in disaster response and recovery.” The Army likewise made changes. In the Army Strategy document dated August 2008, the number one objective out of five listed was to “Defend the homeland [by] continuously deterring, detecting, and defeating external threats to the US homeland through an active defense in depth, and to surge to contribute to the response and management of catastrophic events” (emphasis added.)

The new role of the military

The increasing role of the US military in domestic disasters worries many people in and out of uniform. Some fear the loss of local control even though the mantra of NORTHCOM is that the federal government does not replace state and local authority or responsibility. NORTHCOM commander, General Victor E. Renuart Jr., said in 2009 that the role of the command was, “bringing capability and capacity at the right time at the right place, not overwhelming the receiving state, but bringing in something that is sorely needed. The governor is the commander in his or her state. We work to find the right way to put together the capabilities of the federal government in support of the capabilities of the state and look for ways to continue to partner to make the job of the states easier when it comes time to respond within their own state.”

For the first six years of its existence, NORTHCOM was solely a planning and command-and-control headquarters with no assigned forces. In October 2008, an active duty brigade combat team of 3,600 soldiers was placed under NORTHCOM command. As of April 2010, the command has over 15,000 active duty, National Guard, and Reserve forces assigned on a rotational basis. Some fear the loss of personal liberties and freedom. The full Department of Defense definition of civil support from Joint Publication 3-28 reads, “Support to US civil authorities for domestic emergencies, and for designated law enforcement and other activities.” It is the law enforcement and “other activities” portion that scares people. The attitude of the American public toward their military is an issue sociologists, politicians, and commentators have been tracking for the last three decades. On one hand, the public has a flag-waving, bumper-sticker, yellow-ribbon patriotism. Against this must be juxtaposed the fact that the guy with the “Support the Troops” magnet on his car knows more about his local sports franchises than he does about the military.

Prudent critics are raising serious concerns and questions about the military’s role. In the same Washington Times article of September 26, 2005 where President Bush called for an expansion of the military role in civil support, Gene Healy, the senior editor of the libertarian Cato Institute, said, “When it comes to domestic policing, the military should be the last resort, not the first responder. Putting soldiers into peacekeeping roles will degrade their war fighting skills.” The reality is that a change in the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 would be required for increasing active forces’ employment in some domestic roles. The Congress does not currently seem inclined to debate the issue. Some fear the US military is straying from its primary mission. Protection of individual liberties and freedoms is essential, and though some may be tempted to debate precedence, they go hand-in-hand with national security like the two sides of the same coin.

At the strategic level, the simple phrase, “protecting the security of the United States.” encompasses everything from the large concepts of power projection, forward deployment, and homeland defense to the smaller scale tasks of maneuvering a squad of eleven men or women in battle.

Each service – Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force – develops its own doctrine based on the specific roles and responsibilities of how it will defend the nation. The Quadrennial Defense Review completed in March 2010 was conducted by defense civilian authorities with input from all military services. The goal of the QDR was to evaluate what the US military looks like now and see if it will work for the future. A component of this discussion is the roles of the reserve forces, both the state-controlled National Guard (Title 32) and the Federal Reserve from each service (Title 10). For the past eight years, the National Guard and Reserves have fulfilled an operational role different from their pre-9/11 status as a strategic reserve. They are now an integral part of the war fighting forces in the American military. In a Defense Review News article from February 1, 2010, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen said, “Access to the reserve components remains a critical lever for meeting global operational demands without substantially increasing the size of the active force.” The QDR says the “challenges facing the United States today and in the future will require us to employ National Guard and Reserve forces as an operational reserve to fulfill requirements for which they are well-suited in the United States and overseas.” The QDR calls for the designation of 10 homeland response force packages to correspond to each Federal Emergency Management Agency region. Composed of National Guard units, these homeland response forces would plan, train, and exercise with states in their regions to respond to natural or human-caused incidents.

Many sides in the debate

There are many sides in the debate over the proper role of the US military in disaster relief. Some would agree that the National Guard should be structured solely as a homeland defense force with additional disaster response duties and only mobilized for federal service in times of total war or national survival. Others believe that in this era of persistent conflict, the use of the National Guard as a part of the operational force – deployable and interchangeable with active duty troops – is a necessity. Changes have already taken place in the relationship among the president in his role as commander-in-chief, state governors, and the National Guard. Though usually just a formality, the president formerly required the approval of a governor to transfer a state’s National Guard forces to federal control. However, under Executive Order 13528, signed by President Obama on January 11, 2010, a council of governors created by the executive branch now has that responsibility. The president no longer requires a state governor’s approval to activate forces in that state. In the federal active Army realm, doctrine from Field Manual 3.0, Operations dictates that forces equip and train for full spectrum operations – offense, defense, stability, and civil support. Yet some believe that given limited time and resources, it is in the best interests of the nation if the federal Army forces focus on only first three. Another point of view says frequent nation-building – abroad or at home – reconstructing a war-torn nation in a stability operation, or providing civil support to states savaged by a natural disaster should not be a primary mission of the active US military. One camp believes that the irregular warfare and counterinsurgency of Afghanistan and Iraq will be the de rigueur future of warfare, while the other camp worries that skills in combined arms operations – infantry, armor, artillery, aviation, and logistics working in concert – have atrophied from ten years of fighting insurgents. In a blog on the website of Small Wars Journal in April, Col. Gian Gentile asked the question, “But what if the American Army has to fight somebody in the future beyond insurgents laying IEDs [improvised explosive devices] …? Could we do it? Competent field armies, skilled in all-arms warfare, are not made overnight.” While this debate rages, the US military continues to mobilize and deploy for humanitarian and civil support operations. At the operational and tactical levels of war, the military focuses on the management and control of the systems and procedures necessary to deploy, fight, and sustain forces. Transposing these assets into a disaster relief situation provides tremendous capabilities of which many relief organizations are unaware. Military capabilities intended for war perform the dual role of relieving suffering in peace. Ships, airlift, helicopters, logistics, and engineering vehicles – all have been used in disasters. Plucking someone from a rooftop in New Orleans’ 9th Ward is not so different from recovering a downed pilot in combat.

The US military in Haiti

The US military’s capabilities are highlighted by its accomplishments in Haiti. World response to the catastrophe was immediate. Planeloads of relief supplies and search-and-rescue teams began arriving within 24 hours. The quake damaged Haiti’s already weak transportation infrastructure. Civilian air traffic controllers at Toussaint L’Ouverture International Airport could not maintain any control over inbound relief aircraft. A team from the Air Force Special Operations Command arrived the evening of January 13. They restored order to air traffic operations. This was the first element of what would become a massive US military humanitarian aid mission.

At the peak of military involvement in early March, more than 20,000 American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines were located in Haiti or just offshore. Soldiers and Marines distributed relief supplies, both directly to the Haitian people and to NGOs running displaced persons camps and aid sites. They helped the Haitian National Police restore order. Army and Navy port operations specialists established logistics-over-the-shore sites to receive the large quantities of food and emergency supplies off-loaded from commercial ships. Navy construction and dive experts restored operations to the crippled Port-au-Prince seaport. Doctors and nurses aboard the Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort performed life-saving operations. Air Force air traffic controllers opened, organized, and expanded the air bridge that served as the lifeline in the early days of the disaster.

Air Force crews flew countless missions delivering emergency supplies and personnel. Department of Defense civilians across all services prepared units for deployment and coordinated efforts with counterparts in other government agencies. Thus the DoD disaster relief mission was very aptly named – Operation Unified Response. These operations were not without their problems. Initial criticism of the US military efforts centered on a perceived bias in the prioritization of aircraft allowed to land in Haiti. As the military presence increased, it seemed to some organizations that the USA was taking over the country. Although untrue, this was a source of embarrassment to the US and Haitian governments as the welcoming and enthusiastic entreaties of many Haitian citizens called for the US to resume control over their country as it had done in the early twentieth century. Commanders and public affairs officers were quick to point out that the military was only there to support the official democratic government. They would depart as soon as possible. UN organizations and NGOs chafed at control-oriented military procedures, but were themselves uncertain when they would be able to assume responsibility for the recovery mission. The USA and the United Nations signed an agreement on January 22, 2010 assigning specific responsibilities to each. The UN and the Haitian government would handle local security and law and order, while the USA worked on roads, airports, and the seaport. By late April, US forces were down to 10 percent of their initial deployment because of the expanding capabilities of civilian relief organizations. Some military training exercises focusing on medical and humanitarian relief are planned for the next several years.

The future

The future holds many possibilities, all subject to the political tides and public opinion. Recent headlines and reports provide clues, several of which do not bode well in terms of commitment, exercise, and planning. While civil support will remain a primary DoD mission and a focus of NORTHCOM, the next rotation of US military forces due for assignment to the command will be smaller and consist of more headquarters units versus “muddy boots on the ground” providing actual support. Large-scale exercises may be on the wane, while planning activities may increase. In early April, the 2010 National Level Exercise designed to portray events following a terrorist nuclear detonation in Las Vegas was cancelled for political reasons. Because the proposed substitute tabletop exercise would not meet its training needs, NORTHCOM pulled out of the NLE. Already there are discussions to reduce the size of the 2011 NLE designed to test reactions following a Midwest earthquake along the New Madrid fault.

The Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General released a heavily redacted report in February 2010 referencing the department’s progress in federal incident planning. The report charged that two years after Congress had required DHS to produce federal incident management plans for all 15 National Planning Scenarios, “a full set of plans has not yet been completed for any of the scenarios.” Perhaps an option would be for US military planners to assist DHS and FEMA. To borrow the lyric from a classic rock hit, “So where do we go from here?” In the December 31, 2008 issue of TIME Magazine, journalist-lawyer Siobhan Morrissey wrote a well-balanced article titled, “Should the military be called in for natural disasters?” Her next to last line in the article read, “Reasonable minds can and do differ on this subject.” But it was her noncommittal final sentence that reasonable minds should find unacceptable: “Only future disasters will reveal who’s right.”

While writers and news commentators may be afforded the luxury of a final dramatic line with no consequences, elected officials, public servants, and policy makers are not.

People from Port-au-Prince to Yazoo City deserve better. The dialogue among all levels of government, private industry, and academia must continue concerning the roles, responsibilities, and mission in responding to domestic and international humanitarian crises – of the USA in general and the US military in particular. There is also more than enough room for fair-minded, critically thinking individuals to enter this dialogue on a personal level. The informed, collaborative efforts of many diverse viewpoints and beliefs will eventually coalesce into the policies, law, and doctrine that will impact the US military and the nation for a generation to come.

Allan Boyce is an assistant professor in the Department of Logistics and Resource Operations at the US Army Command and General Staff College in Ft Leavenworth, Kansas. This article does not reflect any official positions of the Department of Defense, the United States Army, or the US Army Command and General Staff College. Opinions and positions expressed are solely those of the author.

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  JP 3-08, Interagency, Intergovernmental Organization, and Nongovernmental Organization Coordination during Joint Operations, (Volumes I & II).

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  JP 3-27, Homeland Defense.

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  JP 3-28, Civil Support.

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  JP 3-29, Foreign Humanitarian Assistance.

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  FM 3.0, Operations.

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  FM 3-07, Stability Operations.

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  FM 3-28, Civil Support Operations.

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  AR 525-27, Army Emergency Management Program.

(Extracted from Natural Hazards Observer, July 2010.)